Spiced Ginger Plum

18 below (F) when we got up this morning! After that, the balmy 12 degrees we’re expecting tonight calls for beach party drinks.

But instead, I’m capping off a long day with Spiced Ginger Plum. While we’re still frozen sounds like a good opportunity to knock out all the chai stuff I didn’t get to around Christmas.

It leads with too much hibiscus, but there is something plummy and fruitcakey once you get the hibby out of the way. It might be better sweetened, but I’m near the bottom of the cup and I’m just too (spiced ginger) plumb tired to get up.

Bundle up, y’all.

Sipdown (694)!

Picked up a small Tea Forte sampler from McNally Robinson while I was in Winnipeg – looks like it was a holiday sampler with different limited edition holiday flavours. Mostly I was just deeply curious about the Rum Raisin Biscotti flavour in the kit…

This was the first one I tried after getting home to Montreal; I had low expectations – “spiced plum” is a rather played out holiday tea flavour/offering and one that’s usually done pretty poorly; plum is a deeply hard flavour to do well. As expected, the infusion did not remind me of plum – but it was still a decently nice cup. Very much a marriage of sweet cinnamon and ginger, with a tart hibiscus-y “cooked fruit”/raisiny note. By far not the worst tea I’ve tried in this vein conceptually, but still has a generic quality to it.

I’m not a spiced fruit tea fan, so this one was kind of unlikely to be a favorite. I’d say it does taste like a mulled cider type of thing. The flavor is difficult to describe, but I found it sour and a bit unpleasant overall with a touch of spice. It’s difficult to get a plum flavor without the sourness. It tasted slightly better cold, but to my taste buds at least, this tea was a bit gross to drink. It took two days to drink because I was kind of grossed out by it. I hate having to say negative things about a tea! I’m never sure whether to leave a low score or no score at all in case personal tastes are interfering too much. The flavor for this one was pretty weird though.

I thought this would be overly tart, but I actually found it had a good balance of cinnamon, dried fig and plum flavour, and fruity tartness. The spicy combination is nice, very warm and comforting. I wish the ginger was spicier, but overall it is a nice flavourful winter blend.

I’ve been testing out some Tea Forte today. :P My friends mom gave me a box with 5 different flavours. Cause she hasn’t been using them and she knows I’m crazy about tea.
Anyway, this one is actually pretty good. When I opened it, I smelled grape right away, but I guess that’s the plum too.. It’s sweet and fruity with a little tinge of spice and ginger. It’s overall a nice tea.